our 2012 Christmas letter

Lean back and pop some popcorn, because it’s once again time for Ian and Anna’s annual awkward, third-person Christmas letter. (2011 letter recipients, Grandma Marilyn is doing great after her Christmas Day shoulder injury; thank you for your thoughts and prayers.)

Instagram: "then my phone went and made it art"

Friends showed us a parody music video about Instagram to the tune of "Photograph" by Nickelback (warning: language). The song is essentially a list of ubiquitous Instagram photo subjects. Ian and I are pretty avid Instagram users, and when I heard the song start out with eggs Benedict (one of my earliest Instagrams at Felix in NYC, if you're wondering), I just had to see how our feeds matched up. Because it's always fun to laugh at ourselves.

01. eggs Benedict (Anna)
02. lemon tart (Anna, actually pistachio cannoli)
03. painted fingernails (Ian. Just kidding. His toes don't look that pretty.)
04. mai tai + inadvertent cleavage
05. beach feet (Anna)
06. plane's wing in the air (Ian. One of a total nine plane photos between us.)
07. city lights in black and white (Ian)

08. glasses on cat (Ian, actually Facetime w/ Pfluff); runner up: Clover reading (Anna)
09. old door (Ian, actually old building that includes old doors)
10. abandoned store sign (Anna, not actually abandoned)
11. everyday items that in some way resemble inappropriate body parts
12. fortune cookie
13. coffee foam (Anna, one of three)
14. pretentious tome (Ian, one of two)
15. garden gnome (Anna, actually frog lawn ornament); runner up: squirrel (Anna)

16. fireworks (Anna)
17. eye close-up
18. self portrait in the bathroom
19. clouds (Ian, though arguably the focus is the building)
20. duck in the city (Anna, actually a turkey family)
21. setting sun (Ian)
22. peach pie (Anna, actually angel food cake with berry compote)
23. kids (Anna, not actually our kid)

If you're counting, we have 18 of 23, without taking any photos after watching the music video. We might lose points for stretching a few of the more specific photos, but I think we get bonus points for the specific ones we exactly matched, plus for chasing birds around in the city with an iPhone. I looked exactly like the guy in the video, minus the language.

So, fellow Instagram users, are you as guilty as we are?

See all our combined Instagrams, and follow us @scherling200 and @annakristina28.

Grandpa's banana cereal

Grandpa used to slice up bananas into a cereal bowl, pour over milk, and add just enough sugar and vanilla. I imitated this when I was little wanting to be just like him, but over the years it was pushed back on a dusty shelf in my mind. One day, quite unexpectedly, the sight of a banana dislodged it and I was transported to the farm kitchen with soft, orange linoleum, watching him measure sugar and vanilla with his spoon. I had an immediate urge to make Grandpa's snack again.

He passed away three years ago today, after a long battle to Alzheimer's. Time has faded the sadness, but I still miss him. Especially today. He was the best.

three years in the making, DIY ribbon Christmas trees

Shortly after moving to Boston, I found Elise's handmade holiday ribbon tree craft project. We were still organizing post-move, so I tucked the idea away for the next year. When I pulled out our Christmas boxes again, I was greeted with my handwritten reminder: make ribbon trees. I searched high and low for styrofoam cones with no luck; true craft stores accessible via public transportation are hard to come by in the Boston area and I was opposed to paying more for shipping than the product cost. I resigned myself to putting it off another year, and once again packed away my note in our Christmas bins.

At some point that following year, styrofoam cones showed up at Blick, which I snatched immediately. Then I couldn't find cheap ribbon in colors that matched our non-traditional color scheme. So while we were home last Christmas, I traveled to no less than three different craft departments to assemble a curated selection of plum, apple green, and champagne ribbon. These spools traveled back to Boston to be united with the waiting styrofoam cones. But then it was January, and Ian has an aversion to Christmas out of season, so I tucked my supplies away for eleven more months.

Which brings us to the present, three years after promising myself I would do this project. And while it took me a long time to gather supplies, crafting the trees went much faster. I did half of the first tree at [REUNION]'s Black-Friday-alternative craft fest, and finished the pair while catching up on the holiday episodes of Suburgatory.

I used seven different ribbons of varying shades, materials, textures, and widths, and I love the way they look together. It's a simple project and Elise's tutorial was easy to follow. My only note is to make sure you're slightly overlapping the edges of the ribbon loops. If you neatly align ribbon edges you'll end up with styrofoam peeking through (I redid my first tree to fix this problem). I haven't added a button to the top, as I'm trying to figure out how I can make little star toppers. Suggestions welcome!

Verdict: cathartic activity with delightful results.

Advent Conspiracy: a Q&A with Christina Rosalie

I waxed poetic about Christina Rosalie's book last month, so you probably aren't surprised to hear I think it would make a brilliant gift.

As I've mentioned, Ian and I celebrate Advent Conspiracy with [REUNION]. It's a reminder to slow down, cut out unnecessary holiday bustle (particularly overwhelming and excessive consumerism), and spend time and money on what really matters.

While Christina didn't write A Field Guide to Now about faith or religion, it shares a certain spirit with the AC movement. Live with intention. Make time to be present in the midst of whatever chaos surrounds you. Don't seek significance where the world claims you'll find it (finding the perfect gifts, attaining a high-profile job). True significance comes through investing in relationships and pursuing your passions. When the world screams "buy more so they love you! do more so the season counts!" Christina offers a welcome respite.

Now on to the good stuff: the Q&A!

photo by Thea Coughlin, courtesy of Christina Rosalie

Where did the idea for the book come from?

It was three years ago when the title for this book showed up at the back of my mind. It was early fall, and the light had just begun to slant in long angles and the first maple leaves were turning vermilion and the idea simply arrived one afternoon, in answer to my own life. It was a time when almost everything in my life was uncertain, and I longed for something tangible—some reference manual for navigating the moments of my life. The book then began as an exploration. I was curious: what might happen if I brought my entire attention to the moment at hand? What might occur if I showed up only here, wholeheartedly, in the process of becoming?

I like to say that it’s part survival guide and part adventure guide—because it’s both an invitation to create whatever your heart yearns for from the ordinary substance of your life—and proof that it is possible. For if we have anything, we have this moment, and if you stop and really pay attention, you’ll discover that wherever you are is exactly where you need to be.

photo by Christina Rosalie

Place is a powerful presence in the book. How did you and your family find yourselves in Vermont?

We came here after Bean was born. If you go back in my archives—way back, you can read about all those adventures of moving from suburban CT, just outside New York City, to rural Vermont and then gutting our house and remaking it into the home it is today. What motivated us to move, really, was the longing to be in a place where our kids could be feral in a good way: wild-hearted with mud on their knees, and safe enough to walk to the neighbors independently. That’s the reality of where we live now—at the end of a dirt road among maples and mud and big, big sky.

What are your favorite things to do as a family?

I love sharing meals with my boys and husband. T is an incredible cook—and does most of the cooking around our house, and it always feels like such a sacred and joyful way to end the day: around the table holding hands and being thankful and then digging into something seriously good. It’s nourishing on many levels.

We’re also big on family walks. We head out on a weekend afternoon down our dirt road. The kids are often on bikes ahead of us, the dog on a long lead. T and I hold hands. We point out clouds to each other that remind us of inanimate objects or monsters or animals, and sometimes we bring coffee in ceramic mugs to sip along the way. Living out in the country the way we do right now, means that a walk down the road is a tangible check-in with the season. Right now the trees are bare, and the road is stippled with potholes and puddles and across the valley the mountain hunches bare and brown like some hibernating prehistoric beast. Going out and taking a walk resets all of us. We come back energized and rosy-cheeked and more ready to take on our day.

photo by Christina Rosalie

Your writing voice is so distinct—detailed and poetic, yet personal. How did you find and hone your style?

Writing a blog for so many years definitely evolved my writing style. There are certain creative constraints that blogging requires: brevity, timeliness, and consistency. Blogging also nurtured my inclination towards multimedia storytelling—and it’s almost reflexive to want to include an image or illustration now when I write.

Speaking of multimedia storytelling, I absolutely love the artwork you created for the book. Do you have a favorite medium and/or subject?

I love mixed media. I love just showing up at a blank page and starting to assemble and imagine and smudge things around a bit. Though I love to do collage, I feel very strongly about creating my own imagery rather than snagging and rearranging vintage images, ephemera, etc. For the book, some pieces were made entirely by hand, in the physical world—while others, like all the stamps on the back of the postcards were made by hand first—in a much larger scale, and then digitally compiled. Working with digital tools is both painstaking and magical. It opens incredible possibilities for dimension and scale. At the same time, it’s utterly laborious to do the exacting work of digitally cutting apart an image and remaking it in some new way, and while I like it for the breadth of capability it’s added to my repertoire, I’m a paint and gel medium girl at heart.

photo by Christina Rosalie

Following along on your blog through the book process, I am amazed by the grace you exude while juggling family, work, school, and creating. How do you decide what is worth sacrificing for, and what you should let go of?

Oh my, grace? Thank you. That’s just lovely of you to say. Some days, many days it doesn't feel as graceful as all that—and A Field Guide To Now is as much an exploration of the messy moments as it is of the gorgeous ones. But that’s not really your question, is it? How do I decide what I should let go of? Children force some of that prioritization: they make you really understand the value of your hours down to the minute, and the minutia of things really stands out as just that: minutia. Laundry, matching socks, the perfectly wrapped gift, evenly blow-dried hair, and the fact that there is almost always a little mud on the calves of my pants from getting in and out of my car—these things don’t matter. Creative time, alone time, dinner together as a family. These things matter very much.

Thanks Christina, for taking time out of your busy schedule to share!

photo courtesy of Christina Rosalie

Christina Rosalie is a writer, mixed-media artist, and creative consultant whose award winning work and been featured in print and online. Most recently she has written for Kinfolk, Milk and Ink, and the Los Angeles Review, and her mixed media artwork has been included in shows at Burlington City Arts gallery and SEBA gallery. Christina has an MFA in Emergent Media from Champlain College, and lives with her husband and sons at the end of a long dirt road in northern Vermont. You can find her online at christinarosalie.com where she writes about the art of living intentionally, and the realness, hilarity, and wonder that results from the convergence of curiosity, creativity, and life with little boys.

Click here for Christina's book, A Field Guide to Now.

Click here to see past Advent Conspiracy posts and gift ideas.

fresh water for a village in Ethiopia

photo from charity:water

If you've been following the blog for 2+ years, you might remember that Ian donated his 24th birthday to charity:water. They combined his campaign with five others, and built a well in Ethiopia in partnership with A Glimmer of Hope. Thanks again to everyone who supported his campaign. Because of you, 280 people have access to clean drinking water. (To learn more about this specific water project, click here.)

It seemed fitting to share this update as we prepare for another season celebrating Advent Conspiracy, a movement "designed to help us all slow down and experience a Christmas worth remembering" by worshiping fully, spending less (money), giving more (of yourself), and loving all. One of AC's big pushes for loving all is taking some of that money you saved by giving more intentional and meaningful gifts, and instead giving it to help end the clean water crisis.

Americans spent approximately 450 billion dollars during the holiday season. Just a fraction of that would provide fresh clean water to everyone currently without it. We can solve a global problem by cutting back less than 5% of our holiday budgets and donating it to the cause.

We hope that you are able to make your holiday season (no matter what you celebrate) one that is full of meaning and joy, and that you also consider helping to make a joyful holiday for others who so desperately need it.

Pssst... if you're still looking for Christmas cards, our friends at The Old Try teamed up with [REUNION] to make some; they're beautiful and $15 of the purchase price goes to dig clean water wells in the developing world.

smitten with food blogger Deb Perelman

After Thanksgiving, I achieved a blogger book tour trifecta.* Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, who has never let me down when I need simple, delicious food (mainly of the dessert variety), was on her new cookbook tour and was making a stop in Coolidge Corner. Erin and I had planned months ago to attend. I called Booksmith the day tickets became available, but was 30 minutes too late. The sales associate reassured me that the standby line offered good odds for making it into Deb's talk at the Coolidge, and the book signing was open to everyone, not just ticket holders.

Almost a month later, Erin and I were in the standby line in front of the Coolidge. We chatted about the cookbook as we waited. Erin already had her copy, and she let me flip through as we waited. On the blog Deb's essays complement the recipes like a good glass of wine and provide an extra layer of depth, and her photography is mouthwatering. I had high expectations for the cookbook, and it didn't disappoint.

We slowly moved forward as someone from Booksmith sporadically counted off people from the front of the line. We were two of the last people to make it inside.

Deb was like your amazing next door neighbor: not a slick rehearsed speaker but an endearing storyteller. She gave a quick rundown of how she started the blog and how she happened to write her cookbook, then devoted the rest of the time to answering questions. In response to a query about the number of monthly hits her site gets, she said "8 to 10... million, no big deal" with an embarrassed laugh, and joked that her readers and book tour attendees were all bribed by her mother to read/show up.

After the talk, we were thankful for our late entry to the Coolidge because being at the back of the theater put us near the front of the book signing line. (Tip for author events at Booksmith: buy the book ahead of time, because the book must be purchased before you get in the signing line.) When we got to the table, we had a great conversation with Deb. I told her how a few weeks prior I made her everyday chocolate cake to celebrate a community group birthday, which Deb informed us led her to the red wine velvet cake in the cookbook, which Erin exclaimed she just made for John's birthday. A chain of chocolaty birthday goodness.

Though Ian couldn't join us, he's the cook in our family so I couldn't leave him out of the dedication. He flipped through the cookbook when he got home later that night and we could eat for a month if we executed all of the recipes that made him say "we should make that!" I can't wait.

*In addition to this Smitten Kitchen event, I also attend the Young House Love event at West Elm and a Christina Rosalie event at Trident.

love, architecture, and heartbreak in Chi-Town

Before Thanksgiving we took a weekend trip to Chicago for our friend Sarah's wedding, who we hadn't seen in ages. And while we were in town we made the most of it, packing in as much as possible in 2.5 days, rekindling a forgotten love of the city.

We hopped off the plane at 9 a.m. Friday morning, were reminded how just plain nice Midwesterners are as we rode the rental car shuttle, and by 10 a.m. were on our way to Wrigley Field. After a few photos and a walk around the park we headed downtown, where we spent the rest of our day hitting architectural high points (Millenium Park, future site of the Sasaki riverwalk project, the top of Sears Willis Tower..) as well as gastronomical high points (Frontera Grill).

Sarah and John's Saturday afternoon wedding was beautiful. Sarah, who converted to Catholicism a few years ago, made sure it was Protestant-friendly. I loved catching glimpses of Sarah and John's relationship from the viewpoints of friends and family, since Sarah and I have been maintaining our now long-distance friendship solely via email correspondence for the past several years.

After the ceremony we had a few hours to kill until the reception. Based on a helpful local attractions list provided by the happy couple, we headed towards the All Chocolate Kitchen. Ian, however, upended these plans after glimpsing a Frank Lloyd Wright house out of the corner of his eye. He yelled, pulled into the next driveway, and turned around so we could take a closer look.

We made a slow journey around the exterior as Ian examined every detail. Thanks to our handy iPhones, we ascertained it was the Mrs. A.W. Gridley House, aka Ravine House, which had been on the market for almost four years and was sitting unoccupied. (I just found out it was sold less than two weeks after our visit!)

While we are confessing nothing, we might have discovered the doors were unlocked. And we might have regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity to examine an architectural gem up close. And we might have wandered around the house (after several knocks and yelled hellos generated no response) while I panicked about possible silent alarms and imagined the police were descending upon the house while we were oblivious to our impending trespassing arrest.

After Ian had his fill of architecture history, we continued on to All Chocolate Kitchen and sipped hot cocoa and ate chocolates while glancing over our shoulders.

Finally, we headed to the reception. After a minor setback thanks to Siri misdirecting us to the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood, we were congratulating Sarah and John. We made our way to the Chronicles of Narnia table (loved the book theme!), where we swapped Sarah stories with her Chicago friends. I can't express how much I appreciated seeing Sarah, meeting John, and catching up in person. We wouldn't have missed sharing in their big day.

The next morning, Ian wouldn't allow me to wallow in our beloved Wildcat's loss to Baylor and dashed national championship hopes, which we had witnessed via ESPN iPhone app on our drive back to our hotel. (I am baffled we couldn't pick up the game on AM; we weren't that far away from EMAW land. And fellow Wildcats, I fully accept my share of the blame: we weren't watching in Boston, and I wasn't wearing my Powercat necklace.)

So we headed back to the city for a morning at Navy Pier followed by deep dish pizza. It did the trick, getting my mind off our purple heartbreak.

We were cutting it close, but after lunch we detoured to Eli's Cheesecake. A box of Eli's cheesecake dippers sent on dry ice for my 19th birthday was the first gift Ian ever gave me (my dad pronounced "he's serious."). We shared a cheesecake bite then raced to the airport and just made our flight.

We were back in Boston by 8 p.m. Sunday night. I still can't believe how quick and easy it is to get to Chicago, and now that Ian remembers it's one of his favorite cities, we might find our way back more often. (That's a warning, Sarah and John!)

a snowstorm, giant cookies, and Young House Love

I think it's safe to say that Young House Love is one of my favorite blogs ever. It's full of inspiring, doable projects infused with family and a personable, quirky, lovable writing style. John and Sherry just released their first book (Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update & Show Your Home Some Love) and one of their first stops on the book tour was West Elm in Boston. No way was I was missing it.

While the blog world allows people to make amazing connections, it can also be very contained: you know who you follow and to some extent who follows you (if you blog), and occasionally connect with another commenter on the blogs you follow, and that's it. A perk to real-life blog events is you sometimes discover people you know and love in real life happen to be fans of the same blogs as you. Thanks to the YHL event, I connected with one of my coworkers and we made plans to attend together.

The day of the book signing, it snowed in that wet, not-really-cold-enough-to-be-pleasant kind of way. We were a little worried we'd have to wait outside, but West Elm had cleverly snaked the line around inside the store. We waited and chatted for 30 minutes in the home office nook, and then John and Sherry appeared to cheers. They quickly ran through some travel-friendly book projects they brought with them, then moved on to the signing portion of the evening.

We waited in line for a little over an hour, but it was fun to spend some time getting to know Sarah (we have so much in common!) and West Elm kept handing out house and heart cookies (made by a local bakery) and hot chocolate. We slowly browsed the majority of the store thanks to the winding line (brilliant marketing) as we moved closer and closer to the signing table.

Finally, our moment arrived! I'm discovering that meeting bloggers in real life is actually not that surprising. Blogs are often a one-person (or couple) show, which means if you follow that blog, you have a fairly accurate representation of that person (or couple). Just as I expected, John and Sherry were sweet, funny, and open, taking time to chat with us as they signed our books, not distracted or rushed by the still-lengthy line behind us.

We didn't do anything crazy or attention-grabbing (brilliant photo ideas, witty comments, thoughtful gifts) so I'm sure, with the thousands of people they have met and will meet on this book tour, they won't remember me. But I'm okay with that, because in those few minutes, they made me feel like I mattered to them; that they appreciated we showed up in the slush and faithfully read their blog.

John and Sherry, just in case you read this, it was so much fun to meet you; you are both so gracious and kind. I look forward to your blog posts every day and love the book (which is currently full of to-do flags). You inspire me to do more to make our apartment feel like our home, and give me confidence that I can make it happen.

And if you were wondering what happened to the leftover cookies, I dragged Ian to West Elm a couple days later to look at Christmas decorations (Ian hates to do anything Christmas before Thanksgiving) and discovered they styled them around the store. They looked cute with the ceramic owl mug, which seemed very appropriate!